Shadow

'Stay where you are,' he called out, 'or I'll break his neck.'

(Fine. If they do as they're told, all we have to do is stay perfectly still till dawn. Piece of cake.)

'Who's there?' another voice shouted back.

'You first,' Poldarn replied. 'Who are you, how many, and what are you doing sneaking about in the dark?'

Gian squirmed slightly under his foot; a little additional pressure soon fixed that.

'I'm Captain Olens of the domestic cavalry,' the voice said confidently, 'second regiment, fifth detachment, seventeenth squadron, forty-third platoon. Who the hell are you?'

Poldarn grinned. 'Nobody important,' he replied, 'except that I'm standing on your friend's neck, and if anybody does anything I don't like, I'll kill him. Understood?'

'Understood,' Captain Olens said nervously.

'Splendid.' Poldarn turned his head towards where he figured the cart should be. 'Gotto,' he yelled, hoping the carter was still there, alive and awake. 'Gotto, are you there?'

'Yes,' the carter replied. 'What the hell's going on?'

Poldarn paused to listen, then replied, 'No idea. Get the lantern lit and we'll find out.'

Now came the awkward part. He stooped down, taking care not to compromise his balance and give Gian an opportunity to escape or attack, slid his sword quietly from the scabbard with his right hand and felt for Gian's hair with his left. He connected and wound a loop of it round his fingers, to serve as a handle. 'Shh,' he repeated, as quietly as he could, shifted his foot off Gian's neck and pulled on the hair at the same time as he straightened up. Gian came up with him, and as soon as they were both upright he let him feel the edge of the sword against his neck. Then he pushed him forward. Disaster would be bumping into someone. Success would be getting to the tailgate of the cart without letting go of Gian or killing him. Rather to his surprise, he achieved success without any serious complications.

The key, he figured, was the stranger's horse, which they'd picked up on the way. He located it by colliding with it softly, and drew himself and his prisoner into the gap between the horse and the back of the cart, shielding them both. About two seconds after he was in position, Gotto's lantern flared up.

'Not on me, you idiot,' he hissed. 'Get down off the cart and walk forward in a straight line.' For once the carter did as he was told without even arguing the toss. 'All right,' he said, 'stop there. Right, the rest of you, head for the lantern and stop where I can see you.'

(Allegory, he thought; in the dark you aren't anybody, or you're who you say you are; with all the practice I've had lately, I should be good at this.)

A face appeared in the glow of the lantern; it was young and round, topped with curly dark hair. 'I'm Captain Olens,' it said. 'We mean you no harm,' it added, rather too obviously as an afterthought for Poldarn's liking. 'Now, who in buggery are you?'

'Olens,' said another voice, 'is that you?'

(And that voice, Poldarn realised, was the stranger, the man with the broken leg. That was either good or bad, depending on context and general world view.)

'Sir?'

'Olens, you bloody clown.' (Ah. Now we're getting somewhere.) 'Will you stop prancing about and leave these people alone? They're on our side.'

Sir,' Captain Olens replied bitterly. 'All right, fall out, over here. Sir,' he went on, 'Sergeant Gian-'

'What? Oh, yes. Excuse me, but would you mind letting him go? These people are-' A very long pause, as if the stranger was making up his mind about something. 'Well, I know them, they won't hurt us.'

Poldarn thought about that. Trouble is, people don't have their designation written on their foreheads-friend, good guy, ambusher, assassin, rescuer. Depending on what decision the stranger had come to, releasing the hostage might prove to be a bad, and final, mistake. On the other hand, he was getting cramp in his sword arm. He let go of Gian's hair, laid his left hand flat between the man's shoulder blades, and shoved. Then he followed, heading towards the light.

There was Gotto, on one side of the lantern; on the other side, four faces, almost immediately joined by a fifth. 'Excuse me,' called out the stranger with the broken leg, 'but if you could bring the light over here, Captain Olens can see it's me and maybe we can all calm down a bit.'

Even Gotto could see the sense in that. Poldarn followed, taking care to stay out of the yellow circle, determined to be nobody and nowhere for as long as he could.

'Olens,' the man with the broken leg was saying, 'where the devil did you get to? I was lying in a ditch in the fog for an hour with a broken leg. If it hadn't been for these people-'

'Sir,' Captain Olens replied. He had the knack of investing that one word with a whole language's worth of meanings. 'I think we went past you in the fog, after we got separated. Then we realised you weren't with us and went back; then I gave the order to search the ground on either side of the road inch by inch, in case you'd fallen and been knocked out, or-' Slight pause. 'Or something like that.'

'Idiot.' The man with the broken leg didn't strike Poldarn as the forgiving sort. 'Right, we can't do anything till morning. I suppose you and your men had better get some sleep. I suggest underneath the cart.'

'Sir.'

He turned his head, looking for Poldarn. 'I say,' he called out, 'you can come back in now, it's all right.'

Poldarn thought before replying. 'In a moment,' he said. 'First, suppose you tell me what the hell this is all about, and who these clowns are.'

The other man grinned. 'About time, I suppose,' he said. 'All right. My name is Tazencius-Prince Tazencius if you want to be all formal about it, which I don't. These men are supposed to be my bodyguard; which should mean,' he added, raising his voice a little, 'that they rescue me from the jaws of death, and not the other way round. But that's by the by.'

Poldarn sighed. All right,' he said, 'that's your name. Now, who are you?'

'Oh, for crying out loud.' Tazencius looked Poldarn in the eye and shook his head slowly, the very image of a man whose patience ran out long ago, leaving him with only a faded memory of what it was like to deal with rational, normal people. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I shouldn't have assumed you'd know who I am. I'm the emperor's third cousin; rather more to the point, I'm the imperial prefect of Mael Bohec-hence the splendid but utterly useless honour guard.'

Poldarn turned his head away. 'Gotto,' he said, 'have you heard of anybody called-what was that name again?'

'Tazencius.'

'Of course I have, you moron,' Gotto replied. 'But how do we know it's really you? I mean, I could put a saucepan on my head and call myself the God of Boiled Dumplings; wouldn't mean I was telling the truth.'

Tazencius smiled, rather more warmly than the joke merited. 'Quite right,' he said. 'Still, since you were willing to help me when I was just some fool who'd fallen off his horse, I hope you won't change your mind now there's at least a possibility that I'm rich and famous.'

Gotto scowled. 'I don't know,' he said. 'I reckon if you were really Tazencius, your guards would've commandeered the cart by now.'

'Oh, I think even Captain Olens knows when he's done enough damage for one night,' Tazencius replied. 'After all, this cart's not going to move any faster even if it were to become government property for a day or so; the only difference would be that I'd have annoyed two strangers who've gone out of their way to help me.'